Jun 19, 2021 7:00 AM

This Low-Tech Habit Kept Me Connected in the Lonely Pandemic

Going on my runs just wasn't the same in a locked-down city. It was time to phone a friend.

When the pandemic turned New York from the city that never sleeps into a slumbering beast, I knew I needed to stay active. Before Covid, I typically started my day with a good sweat at the gym among familiar faces, or a run along the sparkling East River with the sun reflecting off the bridges and on to me.

My routines vanished when the pandemic hit, along with some friends who left New York. Also vanishing was most human interaction. My wife and kids didn’t vanish, though—they never existed in the first place. I was rambling along as a fiftysomething single guy, and the absence of pandemic companions was taxing. But I managed to consider myself lucky. I had my health. I also had my running shoes and plenty of time on my hands.

Even so, running alone in my silent city felt a little too, well, alone.

As I ran past the occasional person loading trucks or braving the quiet sidewalks, we seemed to startle each other. Who should move out of the way? Running in silence contrasted starkly with the horns and jackhammers that normally punctuated my Springsteen playlist. Gone were the coffee carts and exhaust fumes, replaced by air that seemed oddly fresh. My surroundings at 6:30 am were desolate, creepy, and lifeless. On the bright side, I was running great splits. But I didn’t have anyone to tell, because my doormen, my only “live” companions most days, were busy fiddling with their masks and waving a cautious hello as I slipped past.

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About two months into the lockdown, tired of my internal dialog, I texted two of my oldest friends on a whim. “It feels apocalyptic. Is this life now?” Both were juggling work-from-home and school-from-home. They never lasted, but there had always been periods when we lost contact, and this was one. One lived 20 blocks away in the city and shared a duplex with his family. “The teenage girls are busy with school. The 3-year-old gets a little zany,” he replied. The other lived 200 miles away in Washington, DC, and shared cabin fever with his family. “My father, the tech whiz, can’t figure out Zoom teaching, but he’s the same as ever. I miss him,” he texted back. We had sedentary lives and limited spheres of movement, and I found myself yearning to be of some value. Or we could be of value to each other, providing fresh perspectives. But texting felt so impersonal for how I was feeling, and I couldn’t read one more meme or message.

I decided to pick up the phone and call Ray, 20 blocks away. It surprised him. “Dude, are you calling me on a … phone?”

I asked him, what if we got a little respite from our lives by heading out for morning run, but on the phone? A phone call like people once did in, say, 2000. I’d stay socially distanced behind him by a city block, and we’d talk. We could easily conference in Dave on our iPhones, who was socially distanced from us by the 200 miles separating our cities. Plain old telephone service would let us talk and run and recharge. To my surprise, both guys were in. It was a callback to our college days when a phone call would make your day, and every month you would split the bill six ways with your roommates. Then you’d each drop a monthly check in an envelope to pay Nynex.

The following day I awakened to the now-usual sound of nothing, gulped my black coffee, and sniffed my running shoes. To this day, any time I pull out my favorite waterproof running shoes, I think of the two marathons they carried me through, how I kept buying them over and over and how they had traversed rain and snow on four continents. Bleary-eyed still, I had to take a minute to fasten my phone into my waterproof armband (I like the Tribe armband, but any will do,) stuff a key and a bill in there, and cinch it around my arm. I miss when I could just get a case and clip a StarTac to my waist, but the iPhone required a limb to carry. The Tribe is at least snug, comfortable, and keeps you from stashing a $5 bill and a key in your sock—which the bodega owner selling you a post-run Gatorade undoubtedly appreciates.

And to cap off getting dressed, it was time to “mask up.” After trying a half-dozen masks through the months, I settled on a Zensa: bright yellow (so no one had any excuse to run me over), easy-breathing, sweat-wicking, and fog-free so I could see out of my glasses. I then took our one “tech” step: Map My Run, to track my exercise. Without a chip or a watch or a Bluetooth, it keeps a detailed map of your route, your pace, your time, and for good measure, lets you snap a photo of yourself to show how disheveled you look afterward. You can email this information to any companions, to keep everyone honest. Little did I know, the runs would be a vehicle for honesty.

I ran the few blocks to Ray’s, who looked like Gumby in his green Celtics mask from the NBA Store, green Celtics shirt from the NBA Store, and I think the same pair of green-trimmed Nike Pegasus shoes he had in college. I dialed him as he sprinted ahead a block, conferenced in Dave, and we were off. The fastest-moving conference call in the East was taking place, and we had to orient ourselves. “United Nations straight ahead,” I told Dave in DC as Ray and I cut over to the East River. “State Department to my right,” Dave replied. Much of our first run was quiet, just some heavy breathing and rhythmic footsteps, with the occasional banter about sports. But it wasn’t weird.

And we heard each other cleanly. Maybe it was my corded Belkin headphones. (Don’t get me started on plain old earbuds that fall out every 50 feet.) I was thankful for this, because there was a lot to hear.

This was among the most time I had spent with friends through the years. When you don’t have a family, it seems the cord frays. Add a pandemic, and the cord threatens to completely unravel. But as we ran, two times most weeks, our calls made me feel like the rope was being knitted back together. Texts, memes, and email chains with other people seemed soulless in comparison.

“I’m starting a new company,” said Ray one morning, “and I feel nervous. But energized.”

“My kids aren’t making new friends,” said Dave another day. “And they’re so young.”

“It’s dawning on me,” I admitted one daybreak, “that I may not have kids.”

That one brought an unusual silence. We all knew it wasn’t a topic we could solve, of course. But I thought they needed to hear it and to understand being single wasn't merely a source of vicarious thrills for them. I needed to blow up that assumption, starkly. I think it worked, and I think they get it.

Once fall came, we started talking about our college days, when we called home on a payphone, saved term papers on floppy disks, and left notes on our doors about where we were. I also started wearing the best-made item I have ever owned, to stay warmer: a 30-year-old, bright red North Face shell from college, that looked as new as the day I got it. I wore it all winter, rain or shine. They need to make humans out of whatever they’re using at the North Face.

One morning, Dave started the call by recounting an old story we’d heard more than 100 times. A story about when his dad visited him at school and, always the professor, horrified the basketball coaches (and Dave) one day after practice by helpfully showing the team the proper shooting technique. From the 1950s. Then Dave said: “He died last night.”

Our laughter fell silent. I heard my breath, my own feet on the hard path. I saw Ray remove and replace his earbud and wondered if he thought he’d misheard. The East River seemed still. “I can’t go up to the funeral,” he said, “because my mom has to quarantine. Even my kids can’t be there like he was at their births.”

Though it sounds odd to say so, I was glad I got to hear my friend’s voice deliver this news. I was glad we hadn’t resorted to pixels in a text message. How can someone convey what it means to lose someone in a text? How do you send genuine sympathy in a pixelated medium with no “tone”? I’m not sure what I said made sense, but I know I told him I was sorry, that his dad loved him, that we did too.

When I got home, I called Ray. “I wasn’t sure what to say,” I said. “Me neither,” he said. “But we were there. On the phone, like when we grew up. But there.” And Dave, Ray and I decided these runs will continue, post-pandemic. Stories required.

Earlier this spring, I was out running on the gradually-more-populated East River promenade. It wasn’t one of our group phone days, and yet I felt good. It wasn’t that I found my lifelong person, but in a way, I’d found my lifelong people again.

Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” But stories need listeners. When I describe my life aloud, people understand me better. For the first time in a while, I feel heard. The funny thing is, we had the tool for this kind of connection all along. In our pockets. We just forgot to use it.

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